Even hardened sceptics and temple weary tourists fall open-mouthed when confronted by the sheer size and scale of Baalbek. Only the mountains, which form the backdrop, can dwarf its enormous size.

Every school child knows that the Romans built big. But the temple at Baalbek is the ruin of the largest religious structure ever built by Rome. The base of the temple, begun around 20 AD, was almost 290 feet long and 160 feet wide. The 54 columns that supported the structures immense roof were each more than seven feet in diameter and soared 65 feet in height. There was quite simply nothing else like it in the whole Roman Empire. Six of the 54 great columns from the main temple still stand. Even in their miserably shrunken number, surrounded by ruins, they made me shiver thinking about the audacity of the Roman builders. The huge blocks are testament indeed to the pomp and power of Rome.